I'm sitting in a bar of a cruise ship with Henri Haka. I met Henri years ago when we were working for the same agency. But we've never actually worked together. That wasn't going to change here on this boat. We were only working our way back from Tallinn to Helsinki. The sincere purpose of the trip was to acquire budget spirits for Henri’s upcoming birthday party. And when I say 'budget spirit', I say it like Gregory Porter says 'liquid spirit' in his song Liquid Spirit.
E: What should we be thinking about Michael Jackson?
H: Michael Jackson was evidently one the greatest musicians, entertainers, dancers, that ever lived.
E: Isn't that exactly how much you could say about Jesus? A historical character that teached, preached and talked to people about spiritual stuff. Everything that comes after that would be one's own interpretation.
H: Well. I've always been into it, into his story, into the legend. There are so many elements in it that one can identify with.
E: M-hm.
H: But every other aspect beyond that, I mean, who knows. As a kid I used to close my ears from anything negative said about a heroic character like that.
E: It's like, we're dealing with a "case Bill Cosby" here.
H: Acts of people blinded by power.
E: Do you think it's possible to ignore the private person altogether and examine these characters solely through their work? Do I know Bill Cosby as a person, no. To me, he only exists as a character. It was the character that I found entertaining. The fact that I'm now forced to reform that image is just painful. But let me tell you how hard it's not to… not to let it crawl in. The Bill Cosby I see now, is a Bill Cosby that's taking taxi rides with doped women. It's going to take some decent amount of meditation to push that aside.
H: I have no solution. I didn't watch The Cosby Show too much, so you're alone with that one… it might feel a bit too strange to start [watching The Cosby Show] now. But the same applies to, say, the people in the advertising industry. It's impossibly hard for me to value good work if it's done by an asshole.
E: But there's an exception to that when it comes to an asshole that's no longer with us.
H: Yeah, in that case the narrative goes like "his uncompromising work demanded uncompromising acts".
E: A Steve Jobs dilemma.
H: It's a tough one. I find myself constantly evaluating how I treat people around me.
E: To put the appearance of the work – or of yourself – first?
H: I believe the limit goes exactly where you start acting against your own persona. It doesn't mean you can't ask other people to do their best. The scenery would be much different if I would be, say, performing surgeries on human hearts. Only then I would expect others to do exactly what I ask.
E: It's funny how you can always hide behind that metaphor. It's just work, we're not talking about human lives here. I'd like to try and have this conversation with an actual heart surgeon once.
H: I've never really bought the idea that making compromises in a certain range would mean giving up on the entity.
E: I suppose it happened even more often in the past. When there's a person in the room with a ridiculously oversized mandate, it becomes unclear to everyone what kind of behaviour is actually necessary for the sake of work.
H: Again, like with Cosby and Jackson, when you're dealing with too much power you'll start to think that you can get away with anything. You'll start by obeying the rules, but as you slip without facing consequences, you'll develop a habit.
[A brief silence]
H: Man expands like liquid in every direction where he faces no resistance.
E: You just made that up?
H: I did.
E: Don't say another word.
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